I’d been meaning to write about this for a while — and, once again, I’m late to the party, killing my ability to write clever comments on other, more popular, bloggers’ posts with a link to try to drive traffic here.  Which, I’m not ashamed to admit, is the primary mechanism a new blogger has to try to build a readership. Anyway, there are a large contingent of commenters, bloggers, pundits, legislators, and judges for whom the issue is simple:  providing... Read more

Found this classic quote from Salon by googling “the 80s called” + cold war: In an exchange about al-Qaida during the debate, Obama attacked Romney for calling Russia  “without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe” earlier this year.“  “Gov. Romney, I’m glad you recognize al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what is the biggest geopolitical group facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida,” Obama said. “You said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask... Read more

So marginalrevolution.com linked to a Mother Jones article on the widely-trumpeted drop in obesity among 2 – 5 year olds.  Baffling, because there are no corresponding drops for other age groups, and all the efforts have been targeted at older ages — healthy school lunches, “Let’s Move,” etc.  (You’re not going to send a 4 year old to aerobics class, but they’re simply naturally move around all the time anyway.)  And a commenter after my own heart, a Bart Torvik,... Read more

That’s the headline for Kathleen Parker’s opinion piece today (in the Trib, but syndicated from the Washington Post) on Jindal, describing the dust-up over his comments at the National Governor’s Association.  The comments themselves aren’t very interesting, but here’s what she has to say about Jindal more generally: Whatever you call him, anyone who has met Jindal quickly realizes that he considers himself a good ol’ boy, born and bred. Bubba Bobby. An admitted policy nerd who probably would rather... Read more

In the paper today:  “Obama announces initiative for young black and Latino men“: Obama announced a program called My Brother’s Keeper and ordered the federal government to focus resources on programs that had been proven to help minority young men stay out of trouble, succeed in school and land good jobs. . .   The effort will resemble others in Obama’s second-term agenda, as it relies on existing resources, recruits private-sector participation and depends not at all on the approval... Read more

OK, so I’m going to write this summary by memory as I’ve now misplaced the book, but I would rather type this up than look for the book in the time I have before changing gears and starting work. Here’s the basic premise of the book: people generally speak of the American campaign finance system as one in which corporations buy the votes of congressmen by funding their campaigns, whether directly or indirectly, via PACs, bundling of donations, etc. But... Read more

Seriously. I used to check them fairly often, as a generic news site, though I’d fallen out of the habit. Just now, during lunch, I pulled them up again. And here’s what they featured: The top article: “BAD BUSINESS: Arizona Companies Reject Anti-Gay Bill.” It has an especially propagandistic feel because the entire site is framed in red, an ad for The Americans. The story itself doesn’t really have any details on the bill, which I understand to be a... Read more